New Delhi, July 18 -- BERLIN - The threat level had been called "abstract" for years, a bureaucratic designation that acknowledged danger without demanding urgency. On Friday, Alexander Dobrindt used the word "high" for the first time in Germany's postwar security history, and the distinction carries weight. The country's interior minister told reporters the federal government had identified attack plans that were "clearly identifiable," that a foreign intelligence service had recruited operatives on German soil for a planned bomb attack, and that neither the perpetrators nor the timeline could be considered theoretical.

"Germany must be prepared for the risk of terrorist attacks at any time," Dobrindt said at a press conference in Berli...